The California dream has rarely looked as poisoned as it does in Netflix’s new limited-series adaptation of “East of Eden.” The streamer has unveiled the first teaser for the seven-episode drama, with Florence Pugh taking on Cathy Ames, one of John Steinbeck’s most famously unsettling creations.
The series comes from Zoe Kazan (“The Plot Against America,” “The Deuce”), who wrote and executive-produced the adaptation and serves as co-showrunner alongside Jeb Stuart (“Vikings: Valhalla”). The story follows Cathy as her life becomes tangled with the Trask family—especially Adam and Charles Trask—across a decades-spanning saga of inheritance, violence, desire, and moral choice.
“When I was a little girl, I imagined that I could grow smaller. So small that the bad things couldn’t find me, and I could disappear,” Pugh says in the teaser, before adding the darker answer to why Cathy would want to vanish: “Because the world is so full of evil.”
That’s the spine of Steinbeck’s 1952 novel, which builds a biblical family drama out of fathers, sons, brothers, secrets, and the long shadow cast by one generation onto the next. Kazan’s version appears to center Cathy more directly, giving Pugh the morally volatile role that could turn a literary prestige project into something sharper and stranger.
The cast also includes Christopher Abbott (“Poor Things”) as Adam Trask, Mike Faist (“Challengers”) as Charles Trask, Hoon Lee (“Warrior”) as Lee, Tracy Letts (“The Lowdown”) as Cyrus Trask, Martha Plimpton (“The Regime”) as Faye, Ciarán Hinds (“Belfast”) as Samuel Hamilton, Joseph Zada (“We Were Liars”) as Cal Trask, and Joe Anders (“Bonus Track”) as Aron Trask.
Behind the camera, Garth Davis (“Lion”) directed the first four episodes, while Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre (“The Mustang”) directed Episodes 5 through 7. Kazan has also spoken about her personal connection to the material, noting that Steinbeck’s writing has stayed with her since she first read the novel as a teenager.
All seven episodes of “East of Eden” will stream globally on Netflix this fall. Watch the trailer below.
